It's the Easter holidays...
…so we have no set homework or spellings, in line with our Homework Policy.
That doesn’t mean we expect your child not to be developing their skills in reading, writing and maths!
Your child should be reading daily – this could be fiction, factual books, a comic or newspaper, and could include being read to at bedtime, too.
It would be good to practise basic skills in writing by writing a letter or email to a relative, perhaps recounting a day-trip or reviewing a film your child watched.
We’re finding quite a few children are ‘squashing their sentences’ such as I went to Leeds City Museum it was really interesting which is wrong. It would be much better with punctuation to separate or a word to join:
- I went to Leeds City Museum. It was really interesting. (A comma isn’t strong enough to separate two sentences.)
- I went to Leeds City Museum – it was really interesting.
- I went to Leeds City Museum; it was really interesting.
- I went to Leeds City Museum and it was really interesting.
- I went to Leeds City Museum which was really interesting.
Finally, to improve calculation skills, please keep practising mental number facts which your child must know:
- number bonds (two numbers which add up to 10, 20 and 100 eg 3+7, 13+7, 30+70) – these facts should be known by children in Y1 – Y2
- times tables (up to 12×12) and the division facts with your child – children in Y2 should have rapid recall of x2, x 5 and x 10 at least
We know we mention these ‘basics’ a lot, but that’s because they involve practice, practice and more practice – we practise a lot at school, but your child will need to practise at home, too, if they are to truly succeed.
Learn more about current expectations for reading, writing and maths. However, do be aware that a new National Curriculum comes into effect from September, meaning these expectations have been raised and so many aspects of learning now feature in younger age groups.
Fantastic FREE Easter Holiday Events at Leeds Central Library
Thinking about what to do in the holiday? Need a rainy day contingency plan? There’s a lot happening this Easter at Leeds Central Library…
8th April, Children’s Library: The Worried Walrus Shadow Puppet Workshop
- 12:00-2:00pm
‘It’s Time for the Annual Animal Beauty Contest and first-time competitor Wendy the Walrus is so excited!’
Meet the star of The Worried Walrus and make your very own shadow puppets with The Carriageworks Theatre and Odd Doll productions. Wendy and her friends will help you build your own unique shadow puppet and give you a special stage to perform on. Bring it with you to The Carriageworks Theatre on Thursday 10 April to see Wendy the Walrus wow the beauty pageant judges when she re-thinks what real beauty is.
Go to www.leeds.gov.uk/carriageworks for theatre tickets and information
8th April, Art Library Reading Room: Who Goes There? Making Your Robot Room Guard
- 10:00am-3:30pm
Is your brother or sister always sneaking into your room when you’re not there? Wish you could have someone to keep an eye on things and warn you when they do?
That sounds like a job for the Guard-a-tron 3000. Come along to this workshop and you can build your own robot to stand guard over your room and sound the alarm if anyone tries to sneak in.
You don’t need to know anything about robots or computers to attend, but we’ll spend the day assembling a small computer and programming it to detect movement. If you can bring a laptop with you that would be handy, but isn’t essential.
*This event is supported by Child Friendly Leeds and therefore free, but the kit costs roughly £10 each. Please bring some cash along if you’d like to take your robot sentry home with you.
We’re delighted this event is facilitated by Adrian McEwen (creator of Bubblino) and Kirsty Sparrow
It is recommended for children aged 9+ accompanied by parent/carer. To book your place visit; www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/who-goes-there-making-your-robot-room-guard-tickets-10965972519
9th April, Children’s Library: Free Creative Writing Workshops – Fairytales & Fables
- 11:30am-12:30 – ages 5-7
- 1:00pm-2:00pm – ages 8-10
- 2:30pm-3:30pm – ages 11+
This workshop is designed to support children with this year’s National Young Writers theme Fairytales and Fables. In this workshop children will learn how to write a story inspired by a moral or lesson, learning about character and story structure to create their own story!
Places are free but limited, to reserve your space call 01132476016 or email enquiry express enquiry.express@leeds.gov.uk
12th April, Children’s Library: Saturday Family Drop-in – Spring Seed Sowing Workshop
- 1:00pm-3:00pm
This Easter Holiday come join us as we will be making recycled paper plant pots for you to sow sunflower seeds in and grow them on at home. Also enjoy stories, games and the usual Saturday fun.
16th April, Children’s Library: Create Your Own Adventure Story
- 2:30pm-4:00pm
Join author and theatre producer Daniel Ingram-Brown for a workshop using ideas from his new book, Rise of the Shadow Stealers. Create your own scrap-map island, populate it with characters and challenge them with death defying quests.
For more information call 01132476016 or email enquiry.express@leeds.gov.uk
Playing field - council statement
Below is a statement from Leeds City Council regarding the playing field at the rear of our school:
Moortown Primary has got limited outdoor space, currently consisting of a small ‘hard’ outdoor play area. Because of this, the school has made use of an adjacent playing field which was owned by the former Yorkshire Bank. The bank has sold this land to a private developer who has subsequently submitted an outline planning application for part of its redevelopment for up to 29 houses. By working with the developer Leeds City Council has been able to secure 2/3rds of the land to be used as Public Open Greenspace, effectively a public park.
The laying out of the open space, its use and the handing over of the land to the City Council are all part of the planning approval and legal agreement but the details of how the site will be laid out and used will be the subject of discussions with the local community, the school and members of the Council. These conversations will include determining the best way to provide public open space for community use as well as safe, designated space for use during school hours.
(This statement was received on 26 March, but required amendment to avoid confusion; the delay in publishing is as a result of this.)
Playing field - update 2
Last week, Janice Rush, our Chair of Governors, and I attended a meeting about the playing field at the rear of school. Also present at the meeting were representatives from Children’s Services and Planning departments, plus Councillors Sharon Hamilton and Alex Sobel. Cllr Judith Blake, Labour councillor for Middleton Park ward, Deputy Leader of Leeds City Council, Executive Member for Children’s Services, also attended for the first part of the meeting.
It was agreed to explore some possible solutions and meet again in two weeks’ time on 11 April 2014. The content of these can’t at this moment be made public.
The meeting was positive and constructive. Since the meeting, Cllr Sobel continues to work towards a solution which it is hoped will satisfy the needs of all stakeholders – this is encouraging. Another development is that Cllr Blake will visit Moortown Primary next week, on Tuesday morning from 08.30.
Thank you to councillors and other representatives for responding and engaging in the challenge to meet the needs and rights of our pupils: to learn, to play, to grow, to compete, to engage and ultimately to lead a happy and healthy lifestyle.
Playing field - update
Since you received a letter (see below) from Mrs Rush, our Chair of Governors, we have had many questions asking how you can express your views. If you wish to contact someone to make your views known then our local councillors are:
- Rebecca Charlwood (rebecca.charlwood@leeds.gov.uk)
- Alex Sobel (alex.sobel@leeds.gov.uk)
- Sharon Hamilton (sharon.hamilton@leeds.gov.uk)
You should also contact Leeds City Council Children’s Services – you can email your views from this link.
Alternatively you can wait until the planning application is submitted (expected end of March) and follow the instructions on that to make an objection.
Cllr Sobel has asked via a tweet to note that a meeting with Children’s Services, councillors and representatives from the school has now been arranged. I’m happy to update you on this matter. The meeting is provisionally arranged for Tuesday 01 April.
As some of you may be aware the former Yorkshire Bank field behind the school has recently been sold to a developer who has outline planning consent to build a small number of houses on the site.
Throughout the consultation and design process, the governing body of Moortown Primary School has worked with Moortown Community Group, Lime Tree Community Trust, our local ward councillors and the developers. We were led to believe at all stages that some provision for the school would be made in any planning application submitted.
Last autumn, outline planning consent was granted and the above groups all came together to give input to the Stakeholder Workshop held in November 2013. Again, we were led to believe that a portion of the land would be used for housing and the remaining land (around eight acres) would be given to Leeds City Council with some of it becoming a public park and some it being for the school.
Mr Roundtree and I have also met with various members of Leeds City Council Children’s Services (including the Director of Children’s Services, the Chief Officer for Strategy Commissioning and Performance, the Head of Service for Strategic Development and Investment, and the Lead Member for Education) since September 2012 to try to make sure that they are involved in this planning decision and to try to secure some land for the school.
Unfortunately all our hard work and campaigning seems to have been ignored.
At a meeting in February 2014, organised by Moortown Community Group, the developers told us that the plans they were going to submit contained no provision for the school. This decision had been reached working with our local ward councillors, the Parks and Countryside department and the Planning departments of Leeds City Council.
On finding this out, we have tried to arrange further meetings with Children’s Services, the Parks and Countryside department, the planning department and our local ward councillors to:
- find out why the school has been overlooked and will not be allocated any dedicated space
- see if we can change this before plans are submitted at the end of March
A meeting was initially arranged but Mr Roundtree and I were then asked not to attend (at the request of our local councillors) and I have now discovered that our local councillors then cancelled the meeting.
The park is planned to be an informal grassland area. As such, it is unlikely that our school will be able to make use of it for activities such as sports day or organised sports as we do now.
The governing body feel that the current proposals will be detrimental to our pupils. We ask you to join us in raising objections to the plans when they are submitted on the grounds that the school has lost access to private green space and our sports provision will be adversely impacted.
We are not asking for all the land. We fully support the provision of a public park. However, there is enough land available for the school to have some dedicated space and for there to be a park for the whole community to enjoy.
Playing field
Some thoughts about the field at the rear of our school from our Chair of Governors:
As some of you may be aware the former Yorkshire Bank field behind the school has recently been sold to a developer who has outline planning consent to build a small number of houses on the site.
Throughout the consultation and design process, the governing body of Moortown Primary School has worked with Moortown Community Group, Lime Tree Community Trust, our local ward councillors and the developers. We were led to believe at all stages that some provision for the school would be made in any planning application submitted.
Last autumn, outline planning consent was granted and the above groups all came together to give input to the Stakeholder Workshop held in November 2013. Again, we were led to believe that a portion of the land would be used for housing and the remaining land (around eight acres) would be given to Leeds City Council with some of it becoming a public park and some it being for the school.
Mr Roundtree and I have also met with various members of Leeds City Council Children’s Services (including the Director of Children’s Services, the Chief Officer for Strategy Commissioning and Performance, the Head of Service for Strategic Development and Investment, and the Lead Member for Education) since September 2012 to try to make sure that they are involved in this planning decision and to try to secure some land for the school.
Unfortunately all our hard work and campaigning seems to have been ignored.
At a meeting in February 2014, organised by Moortown Community Group, the developers told us that the plans they were going to submit contained no provision for the school. This decision had been reached working with our local ward councillors, the Parks and Countryside department and the Planning departments of Leeds City Council.
On finding this out, we have tried to arrange further meetings with Children’s Services, the Parks and Countryside department, the planning department and our local ward councillors to:
- find out why the school has been overlooked and will not be allocated any dedicated space
- see if we can change this before plans are submitted at the end of March
A meeting was initially arranged but Mr Roundtree and I were then asked not to attend (at the request of our local councillors) and I have now discovered that our local councillors then cancelled the meeting.
The park is planned to be an informal grassland area. As such, it is unlikely that our school will be able to make use of it for activities such as sports day or organised sports as we do now.
The governing body feel that the current proposals will be detrimental to our pupils. We ask you to join us in raising objections to the plans when they are submitted on the grounds that the school has lost access to private green space and our sports provision will be adversely impacted.
We are not asking for all the land. We fully support the provision of a public park. However, there is enough land available for the school to have some dedicated space and for there to be a park for the whole community to enjoy.
Half-way through the school year…
With three half-terms already over, we’re now over half-way through the school year.
In the last year or so, much has changed in the education system nationally… The government has changed content of the National Curriculum, for example, which means that from September 2014, schools (except academies and free-schools) must follow a new curriculum. New attendance guidelines were introduced at the start of this year, as was performance-related pay for teachers. There are changes to assessment in Early Years and in the end of Key Stage 2 SAT tests. These are just four of many changes which take a great deal of time and effort to ‘iron out’ in order for governors to agree a school policy.
Locally, the landscape of education is also changing. There continues to be a significant demand on school places – in this area, that demand is high. Talk of school expansions in the Roundhay – Moortown area is commonplace. Pertinent to Moortown Primary, the field at the rear of the school has been sold to developers for housing and some land for community use. Mrs Rush, our Chair of Governors, has worked hard to try to secure land for us for a dedicated field for sports. Sadly, the needs of our children do not appear to be high on planners’ list of priorities – very frustrating in what is supposed to be a child-friendly city.
On a more positive note, the changes within our school have been great. Our three new teachers are doing a fantastic job. Thank you to all parents who take the trouble to comment favourably about Miss Rushbrooke, Miss Valentine and Miss Curry. The continued improvements to Reception have paid off, with local authority consultants judging teaching and learning to be outstanding. Again, thank you if you have provided us with feedback, in this case in the mid-year Reception survey. We’ll be acting on some of your suggestions, too. Another obvious change is the refurbishment of the ICT suite into the much more flexible ‘Space’ – and once again, thank you, this time for your support of PTA who have helped to fund all the kitchen equipment.
I’m confident the rest of this school year will be just as good.
Growing up in Leeds
Our School Council (2014-15) have been thinking about what it’s like to grow up in Leeds. Their comments might feature in an article in the Yorkshire Evening Press around the Child-Friendly Leeds campaign. In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of what’s been said…
“First, let’s talk about me: Hi, my name is Linda. I am 8 years old and I am in Year 4 in an outstanding primary school in Leeds called Moortown Primary. I was born in the LGI where I first saw my Mum and Dad.
Now let’s talk about my family. I have two brothers, one at Allerton High School and the other one in my school. I have got awesome parents. My Mum is called Patricia and my Dad is called Habib. My Mum is French and my Dad is Algerian.
I am going to tell you the story of how I grew up in Leeds. I grew up with a lovely family, great friends and epic teachers. Also, the great place I grew up in was surrounded by great caring people. Furthermore, I believe that Leeds is an awesome city to be in and to have fun in.
Now let’s talk about the environment. I really enjoy all the activities in Leeds for the kids, such as libraries, cinemas, outdoor and indoor fun, parks and museums, restaurants and many more. I really enjoy the fact that children and young people can travel around the city and make safe journeys. As well as that, Leeds is a multicultural city therefore, I have been able to fit in well to the lovely community. With my French and Algerian origin and my Muslim background, I feel at home in Leeds.
The best thing about growing up in Leeds is having everyone by your side and feeling safe and secure.”
Linda, Year 4
Below is a wish-list of five things to change about Leeds to make it more child-friendly, according to our School Council:
- Racism: One thing we would like to change is racism because everyone is equal and they deserve their own rights!
- Bullying: We would like to make sure help is available to anyone who suffers the effects of bullying. Without help, people may get scared when people around them physically or emotionally bully them.
- Safety on-line: More awareness for children of the dangers they may face on-line to make using the internet safer.
- Litter: Have you ever been to the park where there is loads of dog poo? Awful, isn’t it! We want a cleaner Leeds for us to play safely.
- Graffiti: Although some graffiti can be artistic, we feel there is too much graffiti which makes Leeds look messy.
What would our school councillors change about Leeds?
“I would want to help the poor people become richer, and I would want to see more police on the streets because people throw rubbish on the floor. Sometimes I see dog poo on the floor and it makes me sad. I think that dogs should have a playground.”
Stanley, Year 2
“If I was chosen to be a leader for the day, I would like people who do jobs such as firemen, nurses and doctors to be paid more money. Also, I would want to see more police out and about on the streets because there is a lot of crime.”
Dominic, Year 3
“If I was boss for one day, I would give food for all the poor children so that no one is starving and make sure that poor families don’t have to pay any money for things they can’t afford. I would make lots of houses so poor people can live there and get their food delivered free.”
Naran, Year 3
…And what do our councillors think of Moortown Primary?
“Over the last year, quite a lot has happened in our school. Firstly, we had our old ICT suite transformed into a fabulous kitchen / computer room. Pupils were involved in deciding what equipment to have through our School Council and a lot of thought and design went into this project. Money was spent on thirty brand new laptops and a charging trolley. We named our new room ‘The Space’. It is brilliant for cookery lessons because we didn’t have a proper room to work in before, and it is great for IT lessons, too. Now we can enjoy far more fun cookery sessions in a safe environment. It has been a great addition to our school.
Also, we had an Enterprise week where we had to think of a business idea and promote it. Here are some of the ideas we came up with: face painting, Lego models, house robots, Fruity Tooty drinks. People from a local business came into school to listen to our ideas (almost like ‘Dragon’s Den’) and voted on the best one. This was great because we had to work out costs and who to sell our product to.”
Ayesha, Year 6
Our SEAL theme this half-term is...
‘Good to be me’.
This theme focuses specifically on feelings. It explores feelings in the context of the child as an individual, developing self-awareness and helping the child to realise that it really is ‘Good to be me’.
The theme is about understanding our feelings as well as considering our strengths and weaknesses as learners. It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy. The theme focuses on:
- understanding feelings, and why and how they lead us to behave the way we do – excited, proud, surprised, hopeful, disappointed, worried and anxious;
- self-awareness – feeling good about myself, taking risks;
- managing my feelings – relaxing, coping with anxiety;
- standing up for myself – assertiveness, standing up for my views
We think this theme is one of the most important and useful SEAL themes of the year, with outcomes that can contribute to positive health and well-being in years to come. For example, somebody who is assertive and able to stand up for themselves is far less likely to run into problems at high school (think of the pressure people might face with regard issues such as smoking and e-safety).
Developing leadership skills
Recently four Year 5 children took part in Bronze Ambassador sports leaders training at Roundhay School. After the training, feedback was really positive.
‘I really enjoyed the day and it was a great opportunity to learn how to become a leader… I am going to try to become more confident and get people at school to join in with more sport and other activities.’
These children are now part of a wider group who, alongside Mr Catherall, will be leading sports activity sessions twice a week at lunchtime. They will be joined by students from Leeds Metropolitan University who will also be delivering physical activity sessions at lunchtime.
Our local sports partnership with Roundhay School has recently been set up and is one of the ways we are investing our PE and sport government funding.
